The Alte Donau is a Viennese playground and summer residence, with multiple summery activities and endless options for relaxing by the water and swimming if the weather and geese allow you to.

There’s a very long stretch of swimming options and public pool areas along Arbeiterstrandbadstrasse that have varying levels of entrance fees and perks for access, but our favourite spot on the Alte Donau is actually a free area that’s marked as ‘Arbeiterinnenstrand’.

If you want something more family-friendly and manicured, our second choice for Alte Donau swim days is Gänsehäufel, a gorgeous well kept swim spot with beach volleyball courts, on-site restaurants, a view across to the United Nations offices and options to swim in the pools or the Alte Donau. You could easily set up camp here for the day and feel a million miles away from city life.

Overall, the Alte Donau is a reliable option for fun swim times in Vienna – it can get crowded on weekends or during heat waves, but most people are friendly and it’s never too competitive to find a grassy patch to lay your towel down. If you’re lucky you might even have one of the roving Spritzer sellers come by and offer you an afternoon refreshment – and who could resist?

 

Hello again. These days are really hot (actually the whole August), therefore swimming after you finish your homework for DeutschAkademie is the only possibility how to cool yourself (the second one is to stay in the bathroom and relax in the iced water, but that´s kinda boring).

This is my 3rd week here and I have tried different places to swim. Here you go!

Seestadt Aspern City

Aspern Seestadt is one of Europe’s largest urban development projects. Here in Vienna’s fast-growing 22nd district in the north-east of the city, a new urban center is taking shape – a smart city with a heart, designed to accommodate the whole spectrum of life (source HERE). Because I wrote my diploma thesis on the topic of Smart Cities, I was thrilled to visit this place. We met there with my two friends, one of them studies at Deutsch Akademie too. The place looks cool and that time was not crowded. Swimming is for free; the only cost might be your time because it takes circa 45 minutes by city transport to get there. Water is quite clean, and the beach is pebbly. If you have time, give it a try!

I personally believe that this place will grow up very fast and, in a few years, will look even more livable and cozy.

Aspern

Aspern Seestadt

Danube River

Obviously. Needed to say, there are many places to go swimming in the Danube. However, I have not tried them all. I wrote in one of my previous posts Danube Island, the man-made island. This week I joined my friends for a short swim in the river. The beach was full of people enjoying Monday afternoon and mostly grassy. Water was a little bit dirty around the cost, but after a while of swimming to the middle of the river, it was clean. The place is situated close to Brigittenau Bridge, to go there you must cross it from the side of Handlesakai and turn left. Swimming there is of course for free.

Badeschiff Wien

If you do not mind paying an extra 5 EUR for super clean swimming pool and you wanna drink your super cold bear meanwhile, then Badeschiff is the place to be! It is basically a huge ship permanently located in Donaukanal, in which downstairs is a swimming pool and upstairs is a bar. I love this place so much that I decided to write one full post about it coming soon!

And what is your favorite place to swim?

 

One of my very favourite things about living in Vienna? The heurigen (singular, ‘heuriger’). Incredible winelands are found just on the outskirts of the city. (I like to think that this is one of the key reasons Vienna is so eminently liveable). A heuriger is a wine garden, owned by a family-run winemaker. It’s always filled with local regulars year-round, who come for an hour or two in the evening to drink a bit of wine, have a chat, and listen to, in most cases, live music or singing, and have a simple bite to eat.

This typical Viennese pastime was created by Emperor Franz Josef, who passed a law allowing these family winemakers to sell their wine directly to the public, and serve food alongside it. ‘Heurige’ is an abbreviation of ‘heuriger Wein’—‘this year’s wine’—and it allows winemakers to sell their young wines straight to the public.

Гора Schneeberg (в переводе «снежная гора») при высоте 2,076 метров является самой высокой точкой Нижней Австрии. Как мне кажется, названа она так, потому что, несмотря на отсутствия на ней снега (по крайне мере в летние месяцы), издалека кажется, что на ней лежит белая шапка. Создается такое ощущение за счет белого камня, из которого сформирован пик горы.

В это воскресение мы решили туда съездить. Из деревни Puchberg у подножья горы наверх едет прикольный маленький поезд, раскрашенный под саламандру. Кстати, рекомендую заранее покупать на него билеты в интернете на интересующее вас время, так как наплыв туристов там довольно большой и нам пришлось ждать полтора часа, чтобы уехать наверх. Дорога на поезде занимает около 40 минут, а самые большие энтузиасты могут подняться и своим ходом.

Наверху проложено несколько маршрутов, на потяжении которых расположено несколько кафешек, где можно подкрепиться. И хотя сам маршрут по протяженности не выглядит сложным, легким я бы его не назвала. Он довольно каменистый, поэтому ноги у меня то и дело норовили поехать, а то и подвернуться. Однако виды оттуда открываются поистине волшебные, да и долина на вершине заслуживает того, чтобы ее посетить. Прямо как в старой рекламе Alpen Gold: зеленый луг, коровки, вершины гор на заднем фоне.

 

Hello guys, two weeks of my German language course left. And exactly the same amount of time in Vienna. Today, I would like to share with you, how do I commute to my German classes on an every-day basis.

A healthy way how to commute

I am an active person and kind of living „on budget“ here in Vienna. Therefore, I was amazingly surprised by the bike system in Vienna. During your stay or visit, you may notice a lot of yellow/orange/purple/white bikes, all of them looking the same, driving around you.
These are Citybike Wien´s bikes and if you did not do until now, you should try them. For me it is a very convenient way how can I get quite fast and easy (and for free!) to and from my German lessons. I live around 25 minutes by bike far from Deutsch Akademie, therefore it is ideal!

 

Save money and environment

Here I should a little bit correct the „it is free“ statement. If you apply for your account to be able to rent a bike, you will pay 1 euro. That is really nothing. Then, there are some charges, if you drive more than one hour or if you do not follow the rules. But basically, you can drive up to 1 hour for free, which is far enough to do more than 10 kilometers! After your ride, you must place the bike back in the station. These stations are all around the city (check the map). After 15 minutes you can take the bike again and start your free ride. Compare the length of the German language class per day and you will get it. You can easily drive to Deutsch Akademie, then have a class and leave back home on a bike as well! Without owning a bike. How great is this sharing system?

Summary – pros and cons

+
• You save money
• You save environment
• You train your body
• You are on fresh air

–
• Bike stations all over the city
• One station right next to DeutschAkademie
• Bikes are made not to run fast
• Need of checking full/empty stations
• Need to wait 15 minutes after an hour of use in order to take the bike and continue

How to start?

You don´t need to think more, follow this link https://www.citybikewien.at/en/ and find out in a very easy way, how the system works and how to register. You can switch to the German version if you feel like practicing your skills. Have a good time with city bikes!

Get off the tourist track to start hanging out where the locals are. Right outside of the Inner City is the Naschmarkt. Put up with the crowds and walk at a slow pace to see all the exotic edibles on display. Buy only nibble-sized quantities as prices can be high. To satisfy your hunger go behind the stalls to the diverse restaurants and dine with the Viennese. On Saturdays the Naschmarkt expands to include Europe’s largest flea market. It’s fun to poke through all the dusty knick-knacks but the items are overpriced. (Nb: the Naschmarkt is closed on Sundays and holidays).

From Naschmarkt walk to the bordering bohemian 7th district which is called Neubau. Within a few blocks is Vienna’s biggest shopping street, Mariahilferstraße. If you want something original, check out the young designers on Zollergasse street. Then head east to hit the MuseumsQuartier to grab some culture, coffee, and just hang out.

Hi to everyone again! I thought it would be nice to show you that learning such a difficult language as German can be much fun too!

During classes our teachers always find a way how to make studying easier and more fun for us. They come up with different games that allow us to both practice the language and at the same time relax and laugh a little bit. Some of the latest games that we had were to imagine and describe your dream house to your partner and then draw the houses as you imagine it would look like, or draw your fantasy animal and then describe it to your partner. Today we had to ask each other questions about our dream man or dream woman, which was much fun! 🙂 Also sometimes we play with the ball or dice, or move around the room doing fun activities. This way we manage to practice new vocabulary that we learn during the class and give our brain a little rest, which is really nice! 🙂

More posts to come, stay tuned!

Best wishes to all,

Anna

Vienna is the capital of Austria and the smallest of the nine federal provinces. Vienna is home to 23 districts and was first documented as a city in 1137. In 1155, it became the residence of the dukes of the House of Babenberg, followed by the House of Habsburg which ruled for no less than 640 years.The official language of Austria is German, although most people speak English. It is nice to learn a few German words to be polite.

The Everyday German:

• Hello – Hallo!
• Good day! – Guten Tag!
• Please – Bitte
• Thank you – Danke
• Do you speak English? – Sprichst du Englisch
• Coffee – Kaffee
• Help – Hilfe
• I’m sorry – Es tut mir Leid
• Excuse me – Entschuldigen Sie

Vienna has a tremendous amount of restaurants and coffee houses. Almost all large subway stations have bakeries for a quick pick me up snack. For something authentic, make sure you try various traditional dishes and drinks. I recommend the Viennese Schnitzel, Apfelstrudel (apple strudel) and of course, the almighty Viennese Coffee.

Hi to everyone! Today I would like to share with you the latest challenge we as a group faced during our A1.2 course. We have learned two new topics in class – Possessivartikel and Personalpronomen. By themselves these topics do not seem to be very difficult, however, we have started to confuse these two things and in the end did not really understand when to use what, so we asked our teacher to explain us everything once more in detail, and he kindly agreed. This is what we have learned:

Since Possessivartikel is basically an article, it is not possible to use it by itself without a word that it is supposed to go with. For example, you can say “Sein Garten ist groß” (His garden is large). In this case, you have to specify exactly what you are talking about (garden) and you cannot leave this word out as it will be impossible to understand what you are talking about. Personalpronomen, on the contrary, is independent. Also, it is tricky because you always have to remember that you need to change Possessivartikel from Nominativ to Akkusativ case and Personalpronomen from Nominativ to Dativ case when the sentence includes more than one person or one object, for example: “Ich mag seinen Garten” (I like his garden, ‘seinen’ here is Possessivartikel in Akkusativ), or “Das Garten gefällt mir” (This garden is liked by me (literally), ‘mir’ here is Personalpronomen in Dativ). In both of these examples there is a person (me) and an object (garden) included, that is why we need to change cases.

All in all, German language is indeed quite tricky, full of surprises and details but it is definitely possible to clearly understand it once you really try to and give it some time and effort!

More posts to come, stay tuned!

Best wishes to all,

Anna

1. Stores closed on Sundays is normal and…nice!
After an initial adjustment period, having stores closed on a Sunday becomes completely normal to you. You relish the extra day to relax and unwind, being forced to spend times with loved ones. The thought of spending your Sundays working, schlepping around a mall or driving across town to Ikea in a frenzy, is now unknown to you. Sunday’s are a haven of relaxed chill time, in winter and summer, to reset for the week ahead.

2. You expect a glass of water served with your coffee. Every. Time.
Living in Vienna so long, you’ve come to adopt the local customs, and anytime your latte, melange or cappuccino is served without a refreshing glass of water on the side (complimentary of course) you question your existence and what lowly excuse for a cafe you’ve stumbled into.

3. The quiet pace of Vienna is delightful, not creepy. When you first moved to this laidback, sprawling, pretty city, you thought it was eerily quiet and empty. Now you know that all the best parts of town are hidden on rooftops, in small bars down alleyways or along the Donaukanal and beyond, in the hilltops.

Hello everybody, I got an idea to make short interviews with people who I know from DeutschAkademie. The first person is my favorite classmate, Sidra. We meet each other every day at school, also we managed to go once with our friends to a cinema. I admire her knowledge and determination. Meet Sidra.

Can you briefly introduce yourself?
My name is Sidra Kharita. I am 18 years old and I come from Syria. I have just got my Highschool diploma.

Why do you study the German language?
I study German because I want to study at the University of Vienna.

What do you value the most on DeutschAkademie?
DeutschAkademie provides a great and encouraging learning environment that makes learning fun and simple.

What is your current level of German language and how long you study this language?
I started with German 3 years ago only during summer vacations. I am now an A2.2 student and currently study the 4th course with DeutschAkademie.

Do you think it is important to study languages? And why?
I believe that communication is important for the growth of individuals and societies and that’s why I think that everyone should work hard to be able to speak many languages.

What are your hobbies?
Reading books and backing, especially cupcakes.
Thank you. And now, at the end of the interview, please decide for one of the following options from each category, which do you prefer the most.
German vs. English > English
Games during the lesson vs. Exercises in the book > Games
Grammar vs. Conversation > Grammar
Listening vs. Reading (during the lesson) > Listening
A mixed group of classmates vs. Classmates in your age > Mixed one